Galaxy S8 Release Date Revealed By Samsung?

Leaked Galaxy S8 designs reveal this will be Samsung’s biggest smartphone upgrade in years. But this new information has also revealed its launch and, given the Galaxy S8’s big price tag, you won’t have much time to start saving...

Straight out of Samsung’s home country of South Korea is a report from ETNews which claims Samsung will introduce the Galaxy S8 at an event in New York on March 29. It will then go on sale to the public on April 21. This ties in with previous reports that the U.S. will be the company’s chosen destination after it ruled out a launch at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress later this month.

ETNews lists a “high-ranking Samsung official” as the source and quotes him as saying the company had hoped to release the phone by April 14, but was constrained by its supply chain. Interestingly ETNews has also attained the release date for the LG G6, saying it will launch on March 10t- beating Samsung to market by 42 days.

So Does This Add Up?

ETNews has a solid track record and these dates sound right on the money.

Why? Because while a number of industry reports claim an April release would mean Samsung is late to market, historically nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is the Galaxy S7 broke from the pack with its March 11th release while the Galaxy S6, S5 and S4 all went on sale in April on the 10, 11 and 27 respectively. Prior to that Galaxy smartphones launched in the middle of the year, but that was a very different time.

Exactly how the Galaxy S8 should look according to multiple sources in recent weeks. Image credit: Benjamin Geskin

Which leads us to the one concern about the Galaxy S8 release: price. While the radical new design is likely to excite a lot of potential customers, internally the smartphone won’t be so significantly changed (notably sticking with 4GB of RAM) but Samsung is widely expected to hike its asking price to above $1,000. Apple has a similar iPhone 8 price shock ahead, but that handset will change dramatically both inside and out.

Has Samsung made a misjudgement? After all, while iOS fans have only one manufacturer to choose from, Android fans have many. Either way, we won’t have long to find out…